Investing.com - Asian shares traded lower on Wednesday, taking a cue from Wall Street which suffered its worst session in more than a month overnight.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index fell 0.5%, while in Sydney the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.7%. Korea's KOSPI slipped 0.2% and the Hang Seng was flat.
Shares of Asiana Airline (KS:020560) fell 0.4% after U.S. investigators concluded Tuesday their 11-month probe into the crash of an Asiana jet in San Francisco last July and found heavy reliance on automation a key cause.
Overnight, U.S. stocks dropped on fears the Iraqi insurgency is embroiling the broader Middle East, which offset otherwise upbeat economic indicators out of the U.S.
The Dow 30 fell 0.70%, the S&P 500 index rose 0.64%, while the NASDAQ Composite index fell 0.42%.
Media reports that Syrian warplanes hit targets in western Iraq earlier Tuesday in an effort to join Iran and support the embattled Baghdad government sent stocks falling, as fears began to grow the conflict will increase in duration and complexity, especially if Washington gets more involved.
Middle Eastern concerns sent stocks falling, eclipsing otherwise bullish U.S. housing and consumer sentiment data.
New home sales rose to a six-year high, surging 18.6% in May to an annual rate of 504,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. May's figure was the highest level since May 2008 and the largest monthly increase since January 1992.
Analysts were expecting new home sales to rise 1.6% to 440,000 units.
Elsewhere, the Conference Board reported that its consumer confidence index jumped to 85.2 in June from 82.0 last month. It was the highest reading since January 2008.
Analysts were expecting a reading of 83.5.
On Wednesday, the U.S. is to publish data on durable goods orders, as well as revised data on first-quarter growth.